Sidney Royse Lysaght (1856 - 1941) (pronounced LYE-suht) was a British writer of Irish ancestry.

Early life

Lysaght was born near

Mallow, County Cork Mallow (; ) is a town in County Cork, Ireland, approximately thirty-five kilometres north of Cork. Mallow is in the barony of Fermoy. It is the administrative centre of north County Cork, and the Northern Divisional Offices of Cork County Coun ...

, son of architect Thomas Royse Lysaght (1827-1890) and Emily (née Moss; died 1905). Thomas's father, William, was a small landowner at Hazelwood, Mallow, distantly connected with the Barons Lisle. He was educated at a preparatory school and an English public school before

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

Career

Business

His uncle, John Lysaght, was head of the family

iron making Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ...

concern,

John Lysaght John Lysaght and Co. was an iron and steel company established in Bristol, England, and with later operations in Wolverhampton, Newport, and Scunthorpe. The company was acquired by GKN in 1920. The founder John Lysaght (1832–1895) was bor ...

; Sidney, who became a "successful and wealthy businessman", spent most of his life with the firm, along with his brother

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. He was particularly involved in the development of corrugated iron. Having travelled "extensively throughout Australia, New Zealand, and Polynesia", he visited

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

in 1894.

Writing

Lysaght's first work was ''A modern ideal, a dramatic poem'' (1886), "followed by a number of novels, dramas, and volumes of poetry" including ''Poems of the unknown way'' (1901), ''The marplot'' (1903), ''My tower in Desmond'' (1925), and ''A reading of life'' (1936). He wrote as "S. R. Lysaght".

Personal life

Lysaght married Katherine (died 1953), daughter of Joseph Clarke, of

Waddington, Lincolnshire Waddington is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated approximately south of Lincoln on the A607 Grantham Road. The village is known for its association with RAF Waddington. At the 2001 Ce ...

; their only child was Edward Anthony Edgeworth Lysaght (later known as

Edward MacLysaght Edgeworth Lysaght, later Edward Anthony Edgeworth Lysaght, and from 1920 Edward MacLysaght ( ga, Éamonn Mac Giolla Iasachta; 6 November 1887 – 4 March 1986) was a genealogist of twentieth century Ireland. His numerous books on Irish surnames b ...

), writer and authority on Irish family history. Lysaght died at the family estate, Hazelwood, near Mallow, which he had inherited. He also owned an extensive estate at

Tuamgraney Tuamgraney (; archaically spelled ''Tomgraney, Tomgrenei''; ) is a village in eastern County Clare in the west of Ireland and a civil parish by the same name. Situated a kilometre from the River Graney which flows into Lough Derg, it is an anci ...

County Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,817 ...

, where he established a nursery industry. He had previously lived at

Banwell Castle Banwell Castle is a Victorian Gothic Revival mansion in Banwell, Somerset, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. History The land on which the house is built was owned by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. It was sold to John and Joan Landow ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

.Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 1909, p. 260

Works

*''A Modern Ideal'' (1886) poems *''The Marplot'' (1893) *''One of the Grenvilles'' (1899) *''Poems of the Unknown Way'' (1901) *''Her Majesty's Rebels'' (1907) *''Horizons and Landmarks'' (1911) poems *''My Tower in Desmond'' (1925) *''The Immortal Jew'' (1931) *''A Reading of Poetry; an essay'' (1934) *''A Reading of Life'' (1936)

References

1856 births 1941 deaths Writers from Bristol English male poets {{UK-poet-stub